Hackers, Shitheads, Anonymous & Three New Fish…

So here I am, sitting at a community college in upstate New York waiting for my girlfriend to get out of class. It's been a while since I posted again, and again, I am sorry for that. Seems my life is constantly a big clusterfuck. Shit is always crazy in the life of Unr3a1. I turned 24, been working my ass off, went on vacation, and been dealing with some personal shit.

So I will start with the more useless news. I now am the proud parent of three fish. My girlfriend really wanted to get fish, so we went down to the local PetSmart to pick a few up. We got a starter kit that included a 10-gallon tank, tank filter, water conditioners, and instructions on how to care for the tank and the fish themselves. We then picked up some really pink tank rocks, a little mountain with a bunch of holes in it, and a fake plant. It looks ok, except the girly looking rocks at the bottom of the tank. The three fish we have are a Black Moore goldfish, a Calico goldfish, and then some gold and black one that I have no idea what the name of them is. My two crazy cats love to just stare at the fish in the tank and try to paw at them through the glass. And fish are a pain the ass to take care of. You gotta feed them, change the water in the tank on a weekly basis, make sure the PH levels of the water are normal… just a hassle. But they are interesting to look at, so for now they can stay.

So a guy on 4chan posted information that he got when he hacked into Governor Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo e-mail account. Of course you really couldn't call it "hacking" because all he did was reset the password on her account using public information. All he really accomplished there was showing how retarded Palin was by using information that was readily available to the public as her security information for password recovery. I mean, you work in a public position; why the fuck would you have your security questions ask you shit that I can Google? I mean, in her defense, I never even heard of her until she was announced as McCain's running mate, but even still. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that maybe you shouldn't use the date you met your husband when the date is on friggin' Wikipedia.

Besides exposing Palin's total lack of concern for proper security, the intruder in her account was able to take several screenshots of what he found. I will not post any links here, as I do not feel compelled to give the FBI any reason to shut down my site here. It is obvious that they shut down wikileaks because the site was mysteriously unreachable for almost 20 hours starting shortly after the information was posted. It has since been restored to an online status, but for a while there, it was touch and go…

The big thing about what happened is the individual who posted the information to 4chan entrusted that information to them. The whistle might not have been blown so quickly if had not been for some shithead who decided that it wasn't "right" to break into her account. While technically what the guy did was illegal; it was still the search for information. I mean it wasn't revealed until later, but for a while there people thought that Palin was using this Yahoo e-mail address so that she could hide behind privacy laws. So basically, for the future security of our people and to ensure that she wasn't using her personal email for governmental purposes, it was almost necessary to get in to see what exactly she was using it for. Now, the intruder admitted that she didn't have anything incriminating that would suggest that we should question her reasoning for using this address, so as far as I am concerned this should be considered a "no harm, no foul".

Also, the anon on 4chan who took it upon himself to be the good Samaritan by revealing to her and to the public of what happened fucked it up, which could have potentially made it a hundred times worse for Palin. She is lucky that Yahoo has a security feature that locks the account for 24 hours after too many failed logon attempts. According to Wired, when he posted on 4chan that he had changed the password to her account and alerted friends of hers as to what happened, he posted a screenshot of the email he sent to Ivy Frye, a Palin aide. In this email was the password that he had changed her account to; and the dumb white knight fucker didn't blotch it out. So everyone on 4chan saw the new password and tried to log into the account to change it again causing it to lock up.

Palin has since deleted the account from Yahoo and understandably so. She got pretty close to yet another scandal. However, I think that all of us can learn some valuable lessons from this whole debacle. First off, I think we can take from this, is that since it has also been reported that the Secret Service is investigating who broke into Palin's account, one should never break into any government official's email. Considering everything that has happened with Palin's e-mail address getting deleted, Wikileaks being shut down, the Secret Service being involved in finding out who did it, I would say it was a BIG no-no. Second, you should never trust anyone on 4chan with any kind of sensitive information (no offense anon). Last - but certainly not least - if one should try and be a hero and save the day, for shits sake make sure you smudge out the new password when trying to tell people to give up on breaking into the site. Palin's moron for a white knight fell of his high horse pretty damn quickly.

In different news, a hacker from the Netherlands tried desperately to get into a router in the call center that I work at. I wrote up the whole story, but since I am trying to get it published in 2600, it will have to wait to be posted here. They won't publish it if it has been published elsewhere and that includes my own blog. But as soon as I know whether they will publish it or not, I will post it here as it is a pretty interesting story. Until next time, please remember to try and not break into any politicians e-mail. It's bad joo-joo.

A New Book, Firefox 3, and Converting Girlfriend to Ubuntu... Maybe.

Wow, it has really been a long time since my last post; three months. A lot has happened since then and I am excited for the changes that are on the way. I mean, the editor-in-chief of 2600 is coming out with a new book, Firefox 3 was released a little while ago, Microsoft has dropped full support for XP... I mean a bunch of things are changing. It's crazy.

First and foremost, Emmanuel Goldstein, who is the Editor-in-Chief for 2600: The Hacker Quarterly magazine has written a book. It is called, The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey and it basically tells the story of the evolution of technology, the Internet, computer related laws, and hacking by way of the articles that have been printed in the magazine in chronological order from the magazines inception in 1984. It comes out later this month, and I am really super excited about it. I will definitely be picking it up before I go on vacation.

So Firefox 3 was released a couple weeks ago, and of course I have updated to it and I must say that it is definitely the best version of the great browser to date. With a reported 15,000 security and performance updates, it is advertised as the fastest and most secure Firefox yet, and so far, it is proving to be so. The folks over at Mozilla decided to hold a “Download Day” to see if they can set a Guinness Book World Record for the most software downloads in a 24-hour period. I helped out in this number by downloading the application three times that day; once for me, once for my work computer, and once for my girlfriends computer at home. The final number was over 8 million downloads in a 24 hours. Which is awesome. I think IE just lost some market usage. The world becomes a better place as more and more people move from Microsoft to open source options.

So a few weeks ago, I was talking with my girlfriend about possibly switching her over to Ubuntu Linux. She is very reluctant because she is afraid of the unknown. I told her that Ubuntu could do everything she would need it to do. So, I asked her if I could see if I could get Ubuntu setup with everything that she would need from it. She said yes, but that even if I do show her that it can, she would not guarantee that she would actually allow me to install it on her laptop. Oh well, one can dream. But I am getting it to work how she would need it to, which is good. So maybe she will let me install it on her laptop; we shall see. I mean, everything is already in place.

I was really surprised to see that Ubuntu natively supports and recognizes the Apple iPod. It has a great default application to add and manage music on the iPod, Rythmbox, which in almost every aspect, is just a Linux clone of iTunes. The only things it cannot do is access the iTunes music store, or access any firmware updates that Apple may have released for your version of the iPod. However, it does automatically download the album art work for any albums you have, and there is another iPod application you can download, GtkPod, that can automatically delete any duplicate music it finds on your iPod. The only thing I really gotta get working now, is Office in Wine. I think if I can get that working in Ubuntu, she would be convinced to make the switch. Gotta keep at it though.

Finally, in other news, Microsoft, has finally stopped allowing PC manufacturers such as Dell, HP, and Gateway, from selling OEM versions of Windows XP to customers. As I am sure everyone already knows, Vista was released last year. What you might not know, is that it had a lot of problems when it was first released, and because it was to terrible, and demand from not only home consumers, but also businesses, was so high for Windows XP licenses rather than Vista ones, Microsoft allowed manufacturers to continue to offer laptops and desktops preinstalled with Windows XP. Well, Microsoft finally pulled the plug on this, and now the manufacturers are only limited to installing XP by default on the micro PC's – those PC's that are extremely small, with not a lot of RAM or HDD – that have begun to be really popular in the last few months. While I can initially understand this from a business prospective, I can't help but think that this is really such a damaging move for Microsoft to make. I mean, don't get me wrong, I am happy about it, but how can it be that Ballmer is continuing to make these mistakes? It has been almost a year and a half since Vista's release, and people and businesses are STILL opting to purchase Windows XP machines over Vista ones. Why would Microsoft think that it is safe to stop allowing manufacturers to sell them? Makes no sense to me whatsoever. Oh well; hopefully they will continue to make these mistakes and Linux can take over.

I will be moving soon, so I really don't know how often I will be able to update the site for the next few weeks, but I will try to be on here from time to time. I will definitely be updating on the whole girlfriend running Ubuntu, though.

Ultimate Star Wars Fanboy Movie.

Of course, every Star Wars fan has heard of this movie. I forgot about it for the longest time, because it has been literally 10 years in the making. I first heard about it 8 years ago from a friend who was all excited about it. I haven't even thought about it in probably 3 of those 8 years because I have not heard any new news about it. Of course, until now. The movie in question is Fanboys. It is what they call the "ultimate Star Wars fan movie".

Set in 1998, it centers on a group of friends that go on an adventure across the country to break into George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch and steal a copy of Episode I: The Phantom Menace before it hit theatres. So why is it in the news? The reason is because the production company that funded the film is now trying to change a key element in the plotline. The original plot had a character with terminal cancer that is a major Star Wars fan. It is for him, that his friends embark on their quest to break into George Lucas' ranch. They are unsure if he will live to see the movie in theatres, so they want to get it for him so he can watch it before he dies.

The Weinstein Company, who is distributing the film under Miramax, is unsure about the cancer plotline. Steven Brill, who was brought in to do reshoots and re-editing of the film said, "It would be irresponsible to release it." The film company is unsure how they will be able to make people laugh in the movie theatre after the mention of cancer.

A very large online protest has been formed and you can read about all the news on it here: Stop Darth Weinstein! I of course agree with their feelings on this. I think that the move should be released with its original plotline. Two reasons I feel this way, is one that I don't like political correctness, and I feel that this is what it is ultimately about. The movie studio does not want to feel responsible if people who have cancer are offended by the movie because they may see it as "making fun" of people who are dying from cancer. Also of course, they wouldn't want to lose money by people not going.

The other reason is that they didn't come up with a good alternative. They just reshot the movie with no mention of cancer. So it will seem as if these guys just woke up one day and felt like stealing the movie. While yes, it might still be really funny, I think that it would take away a whole depth to the movie. What's interesting is that Ernie Cline, who wrote the original story for the movie, realized what the movie industry can do. "Unless you're putting up all the money yourself, making a movie seems to be an endless series of compromises," he said. "It's hard to know what that means until you actually go through it. The Weinstein Company can do whatever they want. They put up the money. But it is against our wishes and it's done purely for monetary reasons. The cancer version had heart. It's now a forgettable road comedy with no heart and no soul."

We'll see when the movie is released what is going to be done about it. Hopefully the original plotline makes it to theatres. Support the cause!

Why We Use Linux?... To Be Different.

    Saturday, An Amazing Mind posted a blog about the real reason we use Linux. He suggests that regardless of what people say, or what the "norm" is, the reason that Linux users use that perfect OS is because it is "fun". Yes, this is definitely one of the many reasons… it is a lot of fun to use. But I do not think that is the only reason. Let me explain.

    Linux is largely unknown. For centuries, one of the constants in human nature is the exploration of the unknown. I firmly believe that no one person can know everything about the Linux OS. This is because Linux is constantly changing. Like in a previous post that I had, currently, ndiswrapper is set to not be compatible with the newest version of the kernel. Slackware 12.0, which was release last year, is fully compatible with the ndiswrapper application by default. That will change with Slackware 13.0 (or 14.0 if they are superstitious) if it uses the newest version of the kernel. This means people like me, are going to have to figure out a new way to get their wireless card working if they want to upgrade to the newest version of Slackware.

    This makes the world of Linux unknown again in regards to wireless networking to people in my situation. It opens the door for new challenges and new obstacles to overcome. In contrast, Windows is largely the same from version to version (all versions since Windows 95 have been based on the same layout). Because Microsoft does everything for you, if something doesn't work, Microsoft fixes it, releases an update, and you install it. Now whatever wasn't working before, is working now. This presents no challenge, nothing interesting, just... "Oh look… my sound doesn't work anymore. Microsoft released an update. Downloaded it, installed it, and now my sound is working again… yayyyyyy….". Windows turns your average computer user, and even techie geeks into robots.

    Linux is so much more than just having fun. It's about expressing your personality, challenging your mind, and educating yourself on how exactly computers do certain functions. Linux is almost like snow… no two systems are exactly the same. Windows is all about making everyone follow a mandatory standard that some rich 40-year old in an Armani suit, who knows nothing about how computers work, decides is the "best" standard. Windows strips people of their individuality and their creativity. Of course it also strips them of their security and their rights to manage their own computer. Linux just frees people to be themselves and work against the grain to come up with new and daring ideas without taking control out of their hands. Linux is just… freedom.

    Besides, windows are stupid pieces of glass that only allow you to look at your world. Penguins allow to you experience and interact with your world.

Ndiswrapper… Farewell?

Ok, so it is well known on here that I am an avid Linux user and supporter of the Open Source community and also support the freedom of software, the freedom to do what I want on my computer and on the web. Now it seems, however, that that community has taken a step towards becoming what I hate so much about the Microsoft business model: loss of freedoms. And this is being begun by none other than Linus Trovalds.

Now, if you don't know who Linus Trovalds is, he is the man who originally wrote the Linux kernel back in the early 1990's. He is now the project coordinator for the kernel development team, and he has final say as to what goes into it. This is all fine and dandy, however there are a few problems that could arise out of this, and I feel that one has.

The kernel development team is working hard on the next stable version of the 2.6 kernel, 2.6.24. According to this report the most recent update to the 2.6.24 kernel "…broke ndiswrapper by accidentally removing its access to GPL-only symbols." According to the report, Pavel Roskin, who is an avid supporter of the GNU Operating System, said, "Revert that change and add comments about the reasons why ndiswrapper and driverloader are treated in a special way."

Linus responded with the following statement:

"I'm not seeing why ndiswrapper should be treated separately.

If it loads non-GPL modules, it shouldn't be able to use GPLONLY symbols.

So if ndiswrapper needs GPL-only symbols, you'd better ask the people who made those symbols GPL-only whether they could be made available to ndiswrapper.

ndiswrapper itself is *not* compatible with the GPL. Trying to claim that ndiswrapper somehow itself is GPL'd even though it then loads modules that aren't is stupid and pointless. Clearly it just re-exports those GPLONLY functions to code that is *not* GPL'd."

My biggest confusion with this whole thing is I am not sure if this is a legal issue or not. If what the developers of ndiswrapper are doing technically doesn't follow copyright law with the windows drivers, then I would understand why Linus and other authors of the new kernel would want support dropped for it.

However, if it is not a legal issue, in anyway, and the only reason that they are trying to basically get rid of it is because THEY don't see a point in the app, or don't particularly care for it, then I think that they should just suck it up, and let it stay. There are many people out there (including myself) who are pretty much forced to use ndiswrapper because there are no default Linux drivers for their wireless cards.

I know that as of right now, I would be unable to use my Linux laptop wirelessly if ndiswrapper, or another app similar to it, was not available. Taking out the ability for the app to work to push a personal agenda will only deter potential Linux users away from the OS, and undermine what the whole ideology of the open source community. I honestly feel that they are starting to make themselves no better than Microsoft by wanting to take support out for something they do not care about. Hopefully the developers of ndiswrapper will combat this change by rewriting their code to allow ndiswrapper to work in the new kernel.

Puppy Torture Outrage

Wired.com posted a story about three Marines who supposedly threw an 8-week old puppy off of a cliff out in Iraq. You can see the article here: Puppy Torture. After the article, there were a bunch of comments left by people who bashed people in the military, and here is my comment that I left on the site. Please post your comments on what I said here.

My biggest problem with this, is not the fact that it could be real (even though I think it is fake), but the fact of what image things like this gives to people about the military.

My girlfriend is a prime example. She gets upset, when we are at the movies and they have one of those military ads before the movie starts. She feels that the makers of the ad (the military) should be required to show what "war" is really like to give people a "more realistic" idea of what the military is. Which in her eyes of course, is an extremely violent and horrible experience.

While fine, she is allowed to have this opinion, I really think this kind of attitude is detrimental to the needs of not only the military, but this nation. We need people to join the armed forces. Do I agree with the war in Iraq at this point, no; I do think we need to start coming up with an exit strategy, but right now, we are out there, and we need people to be ready to support our military personnel that are currently deployed in the event that something happens unexpectedly that requires more troops to be deployed. If something were to happen, and no one is joining the military, we won't have enough personnel to go out and support our troops that are already out there.

The other point I want to make right now is that we need to support our troops, because for the most part, they are only following orders from their superior commanders. Yes, obviously, there comes a point where moral responsibility overrides an order from a superior officer and they should have the moral fortitude to say no to an order that violates that moral responsibility.

The other reason of course, is that people who join the military are NOT dumb people. Overall, they are NOT evil by nature. It takes a great deal of courage, honor, and duty for an individual to sacrifice what our men and women sacrifice for their country. People who join the military need to be honored, respected, and remembered for their service to this great country of ours. Talking down about them and spitting on their memories and sacrifices is like talking down, and spitting on the flag of our country and on its citizens.

I am not one to say, "My country: always right". However, I think it is much more damaging, and wrong for people to say, "My country: always wrong." As far as I am concerned, if you hate this country so much, then why are you here? I cannot remember who said it, but one of my favorite things to say to people who hate this country: "Yes, you have the freedom speech. However, you also have the freedom to leave".

The Force Is Strong With This One...

So sometime in October, I covered a story of a few folks that were making an actual X-Wing rocket that they would launch somewhere in California. I expressed an extremely high interest and excitement into this, and a few days ago, I was just browsing around the internet and decided I would see what the update was on it, and if there was in fact a video of it. There is, and I am posting it here from YouTube for your enjoyment. There was also a Y-Wing that was made as well, and I have a video of that. The video will show the X-Wing launching first, then the Y-Wing, and the video will end with a random rocket launching into the great beyond. Enjoy the videos young padawans, and remember that the force will always be with you...

I'm Subscribed!!!

The following is a letter that I submitted to 2600 a few days after Christmas. Hopefully it will be in the Summer issue later this year. Enjoy.

Dear 2600,

I just wanted to pass on the good news. I have been a loyal reader for the last three years and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the articles and letters that are put into your fine publication. I have written a few letters myself that have been published in your magazine. I wrote these under the alias of P3ngu1n, but I have since decided to start going by the alias I have been known by on the Internet for well over a decade now. Anyway, I digress a little.

First and foremost, I have learned a lot about the hacking community from reading 2600 that I never knew before. It has helped me come up with new ideas and new solutions to problems that I have run across in my daily life and for this I thank you. It has also helped me gain a much higher respect for the hacking community than I ever held before. I try on a daily basis to spread the message that you have worked so hard to get out.

Now, time for the good news. After reading your magazine religiously for three years, and dating my girlfriend for a little more than half that time, my girlfriend did something very special for me this holiday season. She was a little short on funds and had a little difficulty coming up with a good gift idea that wouldn't break the bank. She had already gotten me a few things, but she felt that there was one other thing she had to get me. Her mother suggested getting me a subscription to my favorite magazine and lo and behold, she got me a subscription to 2600.

She had tried earlier in our relationship to get me to read a more "normal" magazine like Maxim or Stuff, but I am not really into those magazines all that much, and 2600 is the only one that I actually look forward to every time. She finally realized this, and got me a subscription for Christmas. The winter (24:4) issue was the first one that I received, and I was really excited to get it. I am looking forward to this years magazines, and I will definitely be renewing my subscription in a year. The best part about it, is that my girlfriend told me that if she could have afforded it, she would have gotten me the lifetime subscription. I told her that was a good gift idea for next year.

On a final note, I was not surprised at all by the message on the spine. I really like how you literally use every square millimeter of space that is available to you on your mag. What I was surprised by was the fact that the message on the spine looks proper when you move the summer issue to the top of the stack. If you keep the stack in order which they were published, "Surprised?" doesn't look right at all. I am currently trying to figure out the riddle to the reason you made it so the summer issue had to be on top. Any hints?

Well, once again, thank you for putting out such an important and great magazine and keep up the good work. Don't be discouraged by people judging your magazine who have no idea how to make one or maintain one for as long as you have. I have no idea what it takes to do what you do, so I will not pretend to know what is best for your magazine. The only thing I can say is make decisions that are best for 2600 and it's readers and don't hold any regrets about those decisions. Good luck at the HOPE conference this year; I wish I could go, but I have no extra money to go. I wish it wasn't the last one, but thats life. Also, good luck in the fight to save Hotel Pennsylvania.

Unr3a1

There is an interesting article on a type of P2P that I will write about in a little while. I would like to do my research on it first.